Map Trunk Refurbish pt. 1

I found this trunk at the usual place, an estate sale. It looked pretty terrible, but it was really sound structurally. It was sturdy, the latches worked really well and lined up perfectly. Excellent candidate for a project. First, to prep the trunk, was the usual sanding process. You can see the difference here, from where the top is sanded and the bottom wasn’t..

Then the whole thing. The interior panels were just plywood, so not really worth sanding down.

When I was re-doing the Dome Top Steamer Trunk, I was thinking of different ways I could re-finish its interior. Ultimately, leaving the bare wood the way it was won out on that trunk, but one of the ideas I came up with was using some of these maps I had as a covering. These maps weren’t super old and full of character. They were from the era just before GPS and Google maps, so they were kind of ugly and obnoxious. I used some different stains and paint on a test piece to see what I could come up with. Two different stains and some dark brownish paint later, and this was the result…

I was pretty excited with how it turned out! It kind of had an old leather map look. Huge improvement! The next step was to cut the map pieces down to size.

I ALMOST cut the piece too small because I didn’t take into account that I was going to scrunch it up for texture. That shrunk it down quite a bit, but thankfully it still worked out. Next, I tried to stick the map to the trunk using 3M Spray adhesive. As soon as I applied the stain to the paper, it completely detached from the wood. Time to break out the Mod Podge! Worked like a charm.

I applied the lighter stain to the whole map…

Then I worked the darker stain around the outside and then lightly through the middle. The final touch was the dark brown paint only around the edges. I used the same old rag that applied the stain to blend in the edges of the paint with the stain.

Tada!! Lastly was a coat of polyurethane and it was finished! My favorite part about the maps is that both sections have locations in them that have been major parts of my life.

I’m still toying with the idea of using something to line the map and make the edges cleaner, but we’ll see. There are also big plans for the interior, but they’re still in progress. I’ll keep you posted!!

Dome Top Trunk part 2

It’s finished!! I already did the first post on the exterior, and now the interior is done. I’m so happy with it! This is how the inside started…

It was covered with several layers of awful greenish grey paper. Surprisingly, all it took to scrape that off was wetting it with a sponge and scraping. Lots of scraping..

I didn’t really have a plan for the interior. Well, actually I had several plans, but I wanted to wait and see what exactly I had to work with when I was done with the scraping. I toyed with the idea of modpodging an old map on the underside of the top, or using some of these sheets from Home Depot..

But the wood was looking pretty decent on it’s own..

Not too shabby! I thought I’d try a little stain and see how it turned out…

I always think that natural wood is prettier than any painting or paper. Also, the curvature of the inside of the top would make covering it with any paper or vinyl tiles very tricky (ain’t nobody got time for that). Natural wood it is! Lastly, I added the side bars back on, where they were previously, and made a box for the interior.

(I’ll do a separate tutorial on making the box, don’t want to cram too much in one post.)

…and the finished product…

A few side notes….

The wood in the top of the trunk was definitely different from what was used to make the rest of it. Before I stained the interior all the wood looked the same, but after the stain, the top turned a yellowish brown while the rest was reddish. So, if you look at the tray insert in comparison to the top, it won’t quite match, while it does still match the rest of the trunk.

It took three coats of two different stains to get the new wood on the tray and sidebars to match the trunk. There could have been a stain that matched it identically, but who wants to buy more cans of stain when I already have so many sitting in the garage? One coat of Sedona Red and too coats of English Chestnut, both by Minwax, and it matched almost perfectly. Close enough for me!

It looks fantastic in the office where it’s sitting. Once that room is complete, I’ll post pictures of it in all of it’s pirate-y glory.

Dome Top Steamer Trunk Repair

First, let me start by saying, “What a lot of work!” Especially compared to the first trunk I refinished. Secondly, I am so excited to write this post. I’ve had this thing for months and I’ve only been able to work on it a little bit at a time. Let’s go back to the beginning, shall we? You can see the original in the before and after picture. Apparently someone thought they would try their hand at refinishing it by painting those awful green stripes and white accents. First I tried to see if I could get the paint off by sanding, scraping and paint thinner…

After a good hour of that nonsense, I gave up and decided that painting over it would be the next best option. In the picture above, you can see I’d already given up on getting the green off and started filling in holes and taping off the wood areas. That pretty much covers the next step in the refinishing. I used regular spackling past to fill the holes and larger dents. I left the old leather on the trunk until after I painted it and covered the areas where it had already crumbled off with newspaper and tape. This part was the most tedious. Not only does it take a long time, but it doesn’t get any prettier while you’re doing it…

Things started looking up after the first coat of spray paint, though…

Finally, no more ugly green…

Few things are more satisfying than peeling back clean paint lines. Look at that, what an improvement already. The paper peeled off really easily, but I had to use a box cutter and screw driver to get the leather off. There was also some glue residue left, but a little sanding and scrubbing with a wire brush took it off pretty easily.

Next came the stain. Minwax, Colonial Maple…

Even better, but it needed more shine. I found a gallon of polyurethane for floors at the Home Depot in the secret little scratch and dent section in the back for $9. I googled as much as I could about it, and I couldn’t find anything about using floor polyurethane on projects other than floors. I figured, “What’s the worst that could happen?” It could look absolutely fantastic, that’s what!

After the first coat, some of the edges and knots soaked up the shine, but the second coat took care of that. The last thing that needed to be fixed on the exterior was the feet. I got a 50 cent piece of wood from the scrap section in Home depot and some furniture sliders.

I also used more power tools on this project than I ever have before. First it was my miter saw to cut the scrap wood down to the right size, then electric drills to attach the wood and sliders to the bottom of the trunk. I was pretty proud of myself…

The reason I had to make a new base was because one of the metal feet was missing and I have no clue at this point about how to replace it…

Also, I can’t imagine the trunk sliding around on those metal knobs would be good for anyone’s floors. I thought about adding wheels instead of sliders, but they were all ugly. It seemed like it would just look awkward. This covers everything that I did to the outside. I have some ideas for the inside that I’m really excited about, but that’s for another post…

What project isn’t complete without some help from the cat…

Makes Me Want To Take A Backroad

Hellooo writer’s block. I have to take my GRE this morning so of course my brain thought it would be an excellent idea to wake up at 5AM for absolutely no reason. Fantastic! There isn’t really a method to the madness of writing these posts. I just scroll through my pictures and the first thing that catches my eye gets a post. This morning, at 5AM, it was the things we saw on the back-roads of Tennessee.

We took the back-roads often, but we mostly only drove on the first and last days. The rest of the time, we were in Nashville. We arrived there and found it impossible to leave, so we did a lot less driving than we had originally planned.

Our first stop, once we were outside of Knoxville, was Oral’s Elegant Junk…

Who wouldn’t stop there?? Unfortunately, it was closed. That may or may not have kept us from being chopped into tiny pieces and thrown into a river. I guess we’ll never know. Then we stopped at a few smaller antique/thrift shops which were not what I would call exciting.. but then… we saw this beautifully promising sign..

Bargains AND MORE? What could you possibly want beyond bargains? We had to investigate. Upon driving up the long twisty driveway, this is what we found…

Why yes, that’s a 6′ by 10′ shed… I’m not sure how much “bargains and more” could fit in this place, but there was no turning back now…

Apparently, she’s a couponer and she sells her extras, using a deceptively large sign to lure people in. I only say deceptive because her sign was probably bigger than the whole shed. At least she “excepts” major credit cards…

The people were really very sweet, and I was able to buy some paper towels which definitely came in handy so I can’t really complain. It’s always an adventure.

Our best stop was probably on our way back home. We had just been to a park for some relaxation and river frolicking and we’d worked up a pretty good appetite. That’s when we saw this place…

The food is very southern, which means a lot of fried food and a lot of meat. For us vegetarians, there is a grilled cheese option that they make with Texas toast. Add some tomatoes and it’s perfection! The owners were there and so friendly! They gave us a lot of recommendations on things to do in the area like white water rafting, kayaking, parks etc. Too bad it was our last day!

The decor is very hunter chic..

One deer even gave the place two thumbs up…

Terrible joke. I apologize..

Here’s the address, 3292 STATE HWY 158 SOUTH, GEORGETOWN, TN 37336. If you’re driving from Chattanooga to Knoxville, I definitely recommend stopping for some lunch.

Step up your game, Bradenton!

It has been WEEKS since we had a good Estate Sale in the area. My thrifty senses are becoming extremely bored! If you look at the pictures for this weekends sales, everything looks like it came straight from Pier 1 in 1997. In honor of my next trip (a road trip with a friend through Tennessee! I’ll post about it later) I decided to do a little “window shopping” of the sales going on in the Knoxville area this weekend. I have to say, I like what I saw, like beautiful vintage cabinets that I will dream about refinishing…

Piles of junk to sort through…

No telling what you’ll find here!

Wooden boxes of all shapes and sizes…

And a fantastic GE fan. The cherry on top…

Hellooooo Tennessee! See you in a few weeks!

Estate and thrift, inspiration and uninspiring.

Today my good friend Linda came down to my little town and join my parents and me on one of our favorite past times, Estate sales! There were a few things that I saw today, but didn’t have the space or the money to share. First we have this adorable little breakfast nook dinette thing:

I have just never seen anything like it before! If someone knows the actualy name for it, please let me know. I feel certain that “breakfast nook dinette thing” cannot possibly be correct.I even love the washed out light blue color of it. Anyway, next we have a beautiful solid wood bed frame. Again, I have no spot for it in my house, but it was just too gorgeous to not get a mention:

It could be because I just watched Pride and Prejudice yesterday, but I feel like this bed frame comes right from a Jane Austin novel. Lastly (for “the good” anyway) I saw these cast iron patio table that were really different:

I just liked them. Nothing else to say about that! Now for the BAD. First we have Linda’s unique toilet paper holder:

After the estate sales and the local farmers market, we decided to hit up a thrift store that always has… uhhh… interesting things, shall we say. Everything was half off and while I did find a cute dress and scarf… I also found this:

BUT Linda did also find $10 in a really nice pair of shorts that she tried on, so it wasn’t all bad! Always a good time with that girl! I’d love to read some comments about everyone’s best and worse sale finds!